At Borobudur & Prambanan

Today was our big day in Yogyakarta; we had booked a taxi tour from our hotel, the Puri Chorus. The taxi was a great idea because on our own, it would be difficult to get to the sites.

The first major site was Borobudur, which, as the ticket says is “The Biggest Budha Temple In The World”, “World Heritage List Number 592”, and was “Built in the 8th Century”. It is the second largest tourist attraction in Indonesia. Probably the first is Bali. Below is our first view of the Borobudur Temple.

The corner view of the Borobudur as we begin our climb to the top. Borobudur is solid stone. No inner chambers.

One of six repeated images of Buddha.

Our guide for Borobudur. He was excellent.

An image of Buddha from second level. The view of the landscape from the second level and one the volcanoes in the area.

The archways as we climb to the top.

The second site was Prambanan, “The Most Beautiful Hindu Temple in the World”, “Peace Prk Member of IFWTO & IIPT”, “World Heritage List Number 642”, and was “ Built in the 7th Century”.

On the way to Borobudur, we stopped at another Temple, which had a Buddhist monastery near it. Before visiting the temple we went to the monastery. While there we met Lhobphon Rinpoche, who is a reincarnation of Kunzang Drudul. Rinpoche means “enlightened one”.

We were at Prambanan when the rain began. This is the rainy season and about every afternoon between 3:30PM and 4:00PM it down pours. We left the temple thoroughly soaked. Our driver gave Laura his clean nicely folded dress shirt to slip on. We were shivering cold with car's air conditioning. We were glad to get back to the hotel to take warm showers and dry clothes.

The rain slowed and we checked out the restaurant that is two blocks to the left. The restaurant is called "Quack! Quack!". It serves duck and other rice dishes and soup. Their mixed vegetable salad has a creamy dressing for 12,000 Rupiah($1.33)and the vegetable soup for 4,000 Rupiah($.45 cents). Laura is going to make this soup at home. The soup is chopped, uncooked vegetables with a spicy hot broth poured over potatoes, corn on the cob, green beans, cabbage, onions,carrots, and tomato slices. The hot broth cooks everything making the vegetables crunchy. Indonesian food is spicier than Malaysian food. Most foods in other countries to make food spicy hot chillies are added. The spicy hot is added before it is served.